Hope College will present the one-woman drama "Claim the Dream" on Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 4 p.m. in the Knickerbocker Theatre in conjunction with Black History Month.

The public is invited. Admission is free.

"Claim the Dream" is a chronology of noted female Black leaders and history, and will be performed by its author, Dianne Oyama Dixon. The dramatization includes depictions of a slave trader and passage across the Atlantic Ocean, a slave girl, Harriet Tubman's underground railroad, Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I A Woman?," Mary Church Terrell's right-to-vote speech, Mary McLeod Bethune's last will and testimony, and Rosa Parks's bus ride.

Dianne Oyama Dixon has numerous film and television credits, including "A Piece of the Action," "The Choirboys," "The Cradle Will Fall," "Playing for Keeps," "As the World Turns," "The Guiding Light" and "Good Times." Her stage experience spans both coasts, and includes performances at The New York Shakespeare Festival, the Los Angeles Actor's Theatre, the Ebony Showcase, Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center.

She authored "Ladies, Your Places Please," which appeared at Nashville's Circle Theatre. She has produced, directed, written and performed in hundreds of television and radio commercials that have aired in all markets as well as internationally.

She is a native of Nashville, Tenn., and a Stephens College theater/dance graduate.

Later in the month, on Tuesday, Feb. 11, Hope will host the third annual Ottawa Area Summit on Racism. More information about the all-day summit, which is sponsored by the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance (LEDA) and will begin at 8 a.m. in Dimnent Memorial Chapel, may be obtained by calling (616) 846-9074 or from the Web site www.ethnicdiversity.org[2]. Registration is $25 per person, including lunch.

On Wednesday, Feb. 19, the college's "Dialogue on Race Series" will feature the film "The Real Eve" at 7 p.m. in the Maas Center conference room. Narrated by Danny Glover, the Discovery Channel documentary examines the discovery of the ancient remains of "Lucy" in Africa, and based on DNA reconstructions explores the idea, according to the video's description, that all humankind could "be descended from just a few females--maybe just one." Audience discussion after the film will be led by Dr. Christopher Barney, who is the T. Elliott Weier Professor of Biology at Hope.